


Thanatophobia

by saviourhere



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Graphic Description, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Loss of Control, Loss of Trust, Medical Torture, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, Torture, Trauma, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:35:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24445174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saviourhere/pseuds/saviourhere
Summary: People always say it's good to face your fears. It's an easy thing to say, a common phrase used by so many people, that it's almost lost its effectiveness. The trouble is, in practice, it's a lot harder, something that the team learns first hand when they're forced into a situation beyond anything they've faced before. Can they adapt? Or will fear become their enemy?
Comments: 31
Kudos: 20
Collections: Prodigal Whump Fic Exchange - Spring 2020





	1. Gil

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheFibreWitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFibreWitch/gifts).



Gil’s head swam as he woke up, his mouth felt like cotton and his whole body felt on edge. It was like his body was on fire, and he had a feeling deep down in his gut that he needed to run. Gil had plenty of experience with fear, he’d faced hundreds of dangerous men and women, but he’d always found a way to push through the fear in order to do his job, and do it well.

But he’d never felt fear like this.

He shook his head, regretting it instantly from the pain that shot through his head. Did he have a concussion? Was that why his head was swimming? He’d not had many concussions in his life, but they’d never felt like this before. How hard must he have hit his head to feel like this? Looking around, Gil couldn’t see anyone else in the room with him. He hoped the rest of his team were okay. It had been his call to go into that building; he’d never forgive himself if that decision had gotten the rest of them killed.

Wherever he now found himself, he knew it wasn’t the same building. There was something oddly alive about the room. The walls rippled like waves, and the floor tried to swallow him whole. If it wasn’t for the chair he was tied to, Gil was certain he would have disappeared by now.

His heart beat rapidly in his chest. It felt like any moment it would burst out of him and he’d be able to see it, like something out of one of those cartoons Malcolm and Ainsley had watched whenever they stayed with him and Jackie. Just thinking about those two, when they’d both been so young, innocent and relatively undamaged, ached.

Malcolm had his problems, even back then, but Ainsley had always seemed so unscathed. Now, Gil wondered if he had missed the signs that she too had been traumatised in some ways, or if he had noticed them, but had brushed them off in order to focus more on Malcolm; the boy who’d saved his life. 

He was a cop, he was supposed to be able to notice these sorts of things! How could he have let Ainsley’s pain fly under the radar? Why had he followed everyone else’s example by focusing more on Malcolm?

Ainsley had confided in him recently that she’d often felt ignored, or not as loved or important as Malcolm, and Gil knew he was partially to blame. He’d been a father figure to Malcolm  and Ainsley, or he was supposed to be, but somewhere along the way, he had been more of a father figure to the former than the latter. Now that he and Jessica were finally making a go at things, he was hoping to rectify that mistake. It wouldn’t make up for the past, but with any luck, things would improve going forward.

“Gil?!” A jolt of panic shot through him at the sound of a voice he recognised, one he knew all too well.

“Jess!” How was she here? More importantly, why was she here? “Jess are you okay?”

“I’m not sure.” She sounded like she was putting on a brave front, but Gil could pick up on the fear lying beneath it. “I’m trapped in some awful dark room. Whoever decorated needs a better interior designer.” Gil chuckled in response. Trust Jessica to use humour and sarcasm to brush off what was happening. She and Malcolm were alike in that respect. “Are you okay?”

“Other than feeling a bit weird, I’m okay.” He decided against telling her he was tied to a chair, Gil didn’t want to worry her any more than she already was. “What happened, how did you get here?”

“I don’t know.” He could hear Jessica’s voice quiver, and it killed him that he couldn’t be there to offer her some comfort or protect her from whatever madman was holding them. “I remember someone knocking at my door. Luisa was busy, so I went to answer it myself, and the next thing I know, I’m waking up here.”

Gil’s blood boiled; hadn’t Jessica been through enough? Her home was supposed to be her safe haven, but recently it was turning into a nightmare. If he thought it would do any good, Gil would try to convince her to live in one of her other properties, but she refused to leave that townhouse. She said a Milton had always lived there, and she wouldn’t be the first to break tradition.

“This is what I get for answering my own door. From now on, I’ll leave it to the help.”

Gil couldn’t help himself. He laughed. A part of him knew, or at least hoped, that Jessica was joking, but he also understood why she might be serious. In the past year, she’d carried a gun around in her own home because John Watkins had made a threat, she’d then been chased around the house by that man wielding an axe, Nicholas Endicott had threatened her family, and Ainsley had murdered the latter. In between all of those instances, and afterwards, she had been hounded by the media, barely able to open her door without a reporter being there. All of that was bound to take its toll, especially on top of what Martin had done before his arrest.

“Jessie, it’s going to be alright. I swear to you, I’ll get us out of this.” During his training, he’d been taught to never make promises he couldn’t keep, but he couldn’t do that to Jessica, he couldn’t tell her that they might not make it out unscathed. She had been through enough, he loved her too much to frighten her with the reality of their situation.

“Tut tut Lieutenant.” Another voice cut through the darkness. It sounded monstrous, something between a hiss, a growl and a howl. Something was clearly wrong with Gil’s head: people didn’t just sound like that. “A man of your caliber, of your experience, should know better than to make empty promises.” Who was this guy? Where was this guy? More importantly, how was he reading his mind? “I know all your thoughts, Lieutenant. I’ve been studying you for months, and I have to say, I’m disappointed.”

Gil pulled on his restraints, trying to find a way to get out of them. When he looked down at them to see if there was a weak spot, he realised to his horror that they were clawed hands that held him in place. “What the hell is this?” It was like something out of a nightmare or a horror movie. Gil had never been a big fan of horror movies, and he wasn’t a fan of living one either.

“Settle down, Lieutenant.” A man stepped out of the shadows, his face melting before Gil’s eyes and his dark clothes turning to smoke as it approached the floor. “The more you panic, the worse it will be.” Gil imagined the man’s voice was supposed to sound soothing, but it just came across as mocking. “You and your companion will be safe, so long as you follow my instructions.”

One of the hands released him, and the mysterious man walked over to him, handing him his phone. Was this a test? Gil could use his phone to call for an extraction, he could put an end to all of this right now, so why had his captor given him that option?

“Don’t bother trying to call for anyone. I destroyed your sim card.” None of this made any sense, why give him a phone that was useless? Was this some sort of psychological torment? “You have a choice on your hands, one that will define you going forward.” Gil shook his head, trying to clear the fuzziness from his head so he could focus better. “I’ve watched your relationship with Ms. Whitly blossom over the last few months. It really is quite the sight.”

Was this about jealousy? Was that why he’d been taken? “You leave Jessica alone. Or I swear I’ll-” 

“You’ll what? Kill me? You’re in no position to threaten me.” The man interrupted. “I’m a reasonable person, but I have my limits.”

“Gil? Gil! Help!” Jessica’s panicked cries made him recoil. It caused him physical pain, far more than when he’d been stabbed. “Oh god, Gil, he has a gun!”

“Don’t hurt her, please. I’ll do anything.” He’d lost Jackie to cancer, he’d had to watch as she died a slow, painful death. He couldn’t go through a loss like that again, he couldn’t lose Jessica. He had held a torch for her for years. Even before he’d met Jackie, Gil had had strong feelings for Jessica. To lose her now, when he’d just started a relationship with her, was something he might never recover from.

“I was hoping you’d say that.” The man’s grin was so big, it was leaving the corners of his face. “You love Jessica, don’t you?” The man didn’t even allow Gil to answer before he continued his monologue. “You’ve always loved her, always wanted to be with her.” Gil tried to focus, but it was hard to do when he could hear Jessica screaming in terror. “Yet you allowed fear and shame to stand in your way. You married someone else, and you loved her, I can tell you did, and losing her was painful, wasn’t it?” 

The man placed a comforting hand on Gil’s arm, but the sentiment felt empty and hollow. “I’m sorry for your loss, truly, I am.” Gil wanted nothing more than to punch the guy’s lights out; he didn’t want the man’s false pity. “You could have gone after Jessica, but you waited three years to even make a move or let her know you still cared. All that time, she was lonely, she thought she wasn’t good enough for love. You did that to her, she fell into the hands of a monster because you were too scared to make a move.”

Gil knew the man was just trying to screw with him, but there was an underlying sense of guilt that he’d been in denial about. Could he have avoided Endicott getting his claws into Jessica if he’d acted quicker?

“You two are together now, but something still holds you back.” Pulling out a remote, the man clicked a button and suddenly, images of Jackie were screened all over the walls. Some were pictures, and some were home videos he had made over the years. Gil had no idea how the man could have gotten them, or what the point of all of this was. “You’re still holding onto Jackie. I checked your phone, you have hundreds of images of her and voicemails saved so you can hear her voice whenever you want.” 

Gil’s jaw clenched in anger. How dare that man violate his privacy like that, how dare he rifle through the precious mementos he had of his wife. “Get to the point.”

“The point, Lieutenant, is this. You can keep a hold of all these-” The man waved his hands around the room, turning on the spot till he was facing Gil again. “And lovely, beautiful Jessica will die.” Gil’s heart skipped a beat before falling into his gut. “Or; you can delete everything you have of Jackie  permanently , the images, the recordings, her voicemails, and you and Jessica will walk out of here without a scratch on you.” 

Gil looked down at the phone in his hand, then at the images all around him. How was he supposed to make a decision like this? How could he throw away everything he had of Jackie? He’d loved her: heart, body and soul. Yes, he loved Jessica, but why did he have to give up one for the other?

“Before you make your choice, you should know, when I went to your place to collect all of this, I burned and destroyed all the hard copies. If you delete these ones, they’ll be deleted from the cloud, too. There will be no way to recover them.” Gil felt like he had another knife plunged into his gut. Why was this man doing this? Why was he forcing him into this impossible decision?

“I’m trying to help you Lieutenant. You can either live in the past, or live in the future.” Tears stung the corners of his eyes, the weight of what he would have to do threatening to crush him under its weight. Gil knew he couldn’t let anything happen to Jessica, but losing everything he had of Jackie was also unbearable. Whichever way he decided, his heart was going to be broken.

“Stop it! Please let me go!” Jessica was in pain, she was terrified, they were torturing her. Her screams. He would never be able to forget those screams. Gil never meant to drag Jessica into any of this. If he’d known going after this serial killer would put her in danger, he would have taken every measure to ensure she would be safe. He’d promised to protect her, and he was going to make good on that promise, even if it killed him to do so.

“Forgive me, Jackie.” Opening his phone, he went to his voicemails and pressed the necessary buttons until those messages were deleted. The man smiled, handing him the remote, watching with delight as Gil said a silent goodbye to his wife.

This was unbelievably cruel, but Gil had no choice, he couldn’t allow Jessica to get hurt. With one button, just one tiny little button, everything he had on his wife was forever deleted. He would have the memories, but when those started to fade, he’d have nothing to help reignite them.

Lost in his grief, he didn’t notice the man disappear into thin air, or the restraints being released. It wasn’t until the room lit up and a door opened that he realised he was free. Blinking away the tears, Gil got up on shaky legs and made his way over. He couldn’t let himself wallow in his grief, not till he had Jessica safely at home. Then, and only then, would he let himself break down, then, and only then, would he let his walls down and feel the agony of what he’d lost.

That son of a bitch would pay for this, Gil would make sure of it. He would make the man pay for hurting Jessica and for whatever else he’d done to the rest of the team. It couldn’t be just him who’d faced a challenge like this. Malcolm had dug up enough evidence to show that this psycho had been doing this to other people for months, maybe even years. 

Gil was going to make sure that he and the team were the last people this man hurt, he was going to make sure this man faced justice for all the turmoil he’d caused.

But first things first: he was going to rescue Jessica.


	2. Malcolm

Malcolm’s head felt like it was swimming, like he was underwater. He tried to open his eyes or even to move his limbs, but every part of him felt heavy. At least nothing hurt, so that was a bonus. With great difficulty, he managed to open his eyes, and after an initial wave of dizziness, they started to adjust to the darkness.

The room he found himself in was dark, but not totally devoid of light. It was pretty plain, all things considered, and whilst there was no killer lurking in the shadows, the lack of any distinguishable marks did make it difficult to place where he was, or even who had taken him.

His gut feeling told him that this was probably the work of the latest serial killer he and the team had been closing in on. After two months of sorting through cold case files, Malcolm had finally started to make a connection, giving Gil what he needed to turn it into an active case. Everyone on the team had doubted there was anything there. At one point, they had even expressed their concerns. Gil had approached him one afternoon to ask him if he was trying to force a connection so he would have something other than his family’s situation to focus on. Gil wasn’t wrong, but he also wasn’t right. So when he’d found what he had been looking for, Malcolm had felt a measure of smugness. 

Once they had something to work with, the whole team had pulled together to try and find whoever was killing people. Malcolm had struggled to get a profile on the guy; the different methods of the kills made him a challenge to work out, which was just what he’d needed in order to keep himself distracted. He had theorised that the man was middle aged, they were fairly strong, and after talking to the family members of the victims, Malcolm had realised the killer was targeting people with severe phobias.

It took another week of chasing after clues and leads before they found something concrete, helped by the fact they had received an interesting note from their killer. Techs had managed to trace it to an address, and after a twenty minute car ride, Malcolm and the team had arrived at the destination. 

But then what had happened? Why couldn’t he remember, and how had he ended up in a dark room?

With a groan, Malcolm slowly managed to get onto his hands and knees, and from there it was relatively easy to get into a sitting position. No sooner had he done that, he spotted a pair of shoes in the darkness.

“Ah, hiding in the shadows, classic villain reveal move.” Malcolm huffed. “You know, this whole evil bad guy kidnapping me or threatening me is getting old.” Humour had always been a defence mechanism, even though he knew it didn’t always work in situations like this one. “So, are you planning on stepping out of the shadows? Or is this some psychological move to put me on edg-” 

The end of his sentence was cut short as Nicholas Endicott stepped out of the shadows, dragging Ainsley with him. “Malcolm.” Nicholas’ voice cut straight through him, sharper than any knife ever could. “I’m so glad you could join us.” Malcolm scrambled backwards, terrified by what he saw, and of the danger Ainsley was in.

“No. This isn’t real. You’re dead, I saw you die.” His gaze flicked to his sister, the unspoken words ‘you were murdered’ hanging in the air.. As conflicted as he still felt about what Ainsley had done, he knew she’d done it to protect their family, and that she wouldn’t have done it if not for the things Endicott had done. She’d dissociated, her actions weren’t entirely her fault. His sister had never done anything like that before, which was why he knew this couldn’t be real. It had to be a hallucination.

“Are you sure about that Malcolm? You’ve been known to have… well, let’s just call them funny turns.” Nicholas’ mocking tone seemed so real; it was frightening how real it sounded. “Are you sure you actually saw your sister kill me? Or did you just imagine it?” Nicholas shoved his sister to the floor and came over to Malcolm, grabbing a hold of his face. “Do I feel made up to you?”

Malcolm could feel the warmth of Endicott’s hands, the smoothness of skin that had barely seen any hands-on work. Endicott’s breath was warm on his face, he could smell Châteauneuf-du-Pape on his breath. None of his hallucinations had been that real before. “No. No this can’t be real.” All the evidence pointed to it being real, but how could Malcolm believe that when he’d witnessed his sister brutally murder the man? How could Nicholas be standing there when he was already buried six feet under?

“Maybe I’m not real, maybe I am. But that’s not what’s important right now.” Nicholas let go of him and returned to his sister, picking her up by her hair. The scream it evoked set his teeth on edge, and he wanted nothing more than to hurt Endicott for daring to cause his little sister pain. “What’s important, is you Malcolm.”

Seemingly out of nowhere, Nicholas pulled out a knife and held it to Ainsley’s throat. “You could have stopped me yourself. Instead, you let that task fall to your innocent little sister.” Malcolm began to beg and plead for Nicholas to let his sister go, but it fell on deaf ears. “She might have been acquitted of all charges, but her life is now forever ruined, all because you failed to act. Your fear of becoming your father forced your sister into an impossible position. Your fear broke her.”

Tears were now streaming down Malcolm’s face, shame and guilt crashing down upon him like waves upon the sand. As much as he hated what Endicott was saying, he was unable to deny it. Malcolm had been planning on shooting Nicholas until his father’s voice in his head had made him hesitate. He wanted so badly to be a good person, to not turn into his father, that he had more or less turned his sister into their father. Malcolm knew she wasn’t a serial killer, but what if killing Nicholas was the catalyst that sparked it all? What if she kept on killing because of that moment?

He would be lying if he said he hadn’t been keeping a close eye on her, looking for the tell tale signs that she could be turning into a killer. Malcolm felt awful that he was doing it, and he  had also been offering her comfort and someone to talk to, but he’d been profiling her. Something he never thought he would be doing to his little sister.

She had always been the golden child, the one who functioned better than the rest of them. Malcolm had lost count of the amount of times Ainsley had comforted him or been there for him whenever he’d had a nightmare. It was hard for him to connect that person with the one he’d seen kill Endicott with such a cold and detached look on her face.

“Malcolm-” Ainsley’s scared voice yanked Malcolm out of his own thoughts. Seeing how scared she was, he knew he had to do something. He had years of FBI and martial arts training: he could take Nicholas down. “Please. Stop him.” Malcolm had never heard Ainsley sound so scared, not even when they’d been children. That alone was enough to make him act. He was going to stop Nicholas, and he was going to arrest him. This time, he wasn’t going to let Endicott get away.

No sooner had he stepped towards Nicholas, fists at the ready, he watched in horror as Nicholas carved Ainsley’s throat open, just like she had done to him. Warm blood splattered his face, and he could do nothing as Nicholas let her drop the the floor like a sack of potatoes. Malcolm screamed her name as he dropped to his knees to cradle her head in a foolish attempt to stem the blood flow. He knew she was already dead, but he still had to try. This was his baby sister, she couldn’t die, not because of him. 

“You should have used the gun.” Nicholas’ mocking voice broke through Malcolm’s screams, barely audible, but just enough to really twist the knife in. “Her blood is on your hands Malcolm. You failed to act,  again . Hopefully next time you’ll do better.” Before Malcolm could even comprehend what that meant, something struck the back of his head with enough force to knock him out. The last image he saw was his sister’s empty eyes staring back at him.

When he finally came to, Malcolm knew some time had passed because the blood on his face had gone cold, and his sister’s body was gone. Tears stung at the corner of his eyes, and he let go of whatever pride he had, weeping openly. How could this have happened? How could his little sister be gone? Just like that? If Nicholas, or whoever that had been, wanted to hurt him, why not torture him? Why did they have to go after Ainsley? She didn’t deserve to die like that.

Neither did Endicott.

He hated how right that voice was. For all his sins, Nicholas should have gone to trial. He hadn’t deserved to die in such a brutal way: no one deserved that.

“Finally awake.” No, not again. Nicholas had already taken his sister, what more could he want? “Let’s try that again.”

Confused, Malcolm picked himself up and saw Nicholas holding a knife to Ainsley’s throat…again. Had he dreamed the first time? Or was this the dream? “Are you going to stop me? Are you going to finally grow a pair? Or are you just going to stand there and watch as I slice open her pretty little neck?” Tears were streaming down Ainsley’s cheeks as Nicholas stroked her hair, just like he’d done all those months ago.

“Who are you? What do you want?!” Malcolm whimpered. “Why are you doing this?”

“You have thirty seconds to decide. What kind of man are you going to be? A man gripped by fear? Or a man who overcomes fear?” 

“Please, you don’t have to do this.” Malcolm begged whilst Nicholas began counting down. “I’ll do anything, just don’t hurt her.” A part of his brain told him this wasn’t real, but if there was a small chance that it was real, Malcolm couldn’t risk it. “I know you feel like you have to do this, but we can work something out, I can get you help, just let her go please.”

As Nicholas continued to count, Malcolm spotted a gun lying right next to him out of the corner of his eye. Ainsley began to scream and beg him to shoot Nicholas. She was so scared. But Malcolm couldn’t do it: if he shot Nicholas, then he was no better than Martin.

“Time’s up.” Once again, Malcolm watched as his sister was killed right in front of him. The howl of pain that escaped him turned to uncontrollable sobbing until his voice became hoarse and he slipped into a state of near sleep from pure exhaustion.

He was almost surprised when everything reset. Once more, Nicholas threatened his sister, and once again, Malcolm was faced with a choice. Either he killed Nicholas with the gun that was conveniently placed next to him, or he had to watch his sister die. Each time he failed, he felt a piece of his soul and his sanity get chipped away. So when Nicholas appeared again after what felt like two dozen times and told him this was his last chance, Malcolm was completely and utterly numb.

This was all his fault. He’d failed his sister, his family and Gil when Nicholas had threatened their family. He could have put an end to Nicholas’ reign of tyranny if he’d held his nerve and pulled the trigger. His sister wouldn’t have been traumatised, she wouldn’t have faced a possible life sentence in prison. She would still have her job, her reputation, her friends, she would still be her happy optimistic self instead of the ghost of her former self that he now saw.

His mother wouldn’t be fighting off reporters who wanted to stir up a scandal, she wouldn’t be tiptoeing around Ainsley, worried about what might trigger her. His mother wouldn’t be falling apart at the seams, barely held together if not for Gil’s support. Malcolm didn’t know what he’d do if Gil wasn’t there to help him. Every day was a struggle, and it wouldn’t be that way if he hadn’t been so afraid of himself.

His family wouldn’t be a mess, his father wouldn’t be trying to sink his claws into Ainsley, all the stress, the grief, the scrutiny that they’d been put under wouldn’t have happened if he’d been the one to kill Nicholas. He was already being charged with murder, he would have ended up in prison regardless, so Malcolm could have killed Nicholas and spared his sister that trauma.

Or, as JT had once pointed out, he could have used the training he’d gotten at the FBI and shot Nicholas in an area that wasn’t as life threatening as the heart, bowl or head, and once Nicholas was out of surgery, they could have charged him for Gil’s attempted murder and dug up everything else Nicholas had done and finally sent him to prison. If Malcolm hadn’t failed to act, his life now would be sunshine and roses compared to what it actually was.

“This is it, Malcolm. Your final attempt.” Malcolm blinked slowly and looked up at Nicholas. He was so tired physically, emotionally and mentally, he just wanted this to be over and done with. “If you fail again, not only will I kill your sister, but I will walk out of here and I will go after your mother, I will go after your father, I will finish what I started with Gil, and one by one I will kill everyone you care about, including those idiots you have for a team.”

Tempting as it was to call his bluff, Malcolm knew Endicott was good on his word. If he didn’t do something now, all of their deaths would be on him. It would be as if he’d killed them himself, and Malcolm couldn’t let that happen: he wouldn’t be able to survive the guilt and the grief. He’d struggled all his life to make meaningful connections; he couldn’t let Nicholas take away the few good ones he had.

“Five-” The countdown began, and it was the shortest it had ever been. With a sense of finality and resignation, Malcolm picked up the gun. It wasn’t the first time he’d picked it up. In fact, the last five times, Malcolm had picked it up, only to drop it, throw it to one side, or point it at Nicholas without doing anything. It had felt heavy in his hands each of those times, but now it felt surprisingly light, almost as if the world was telling him this was the right thing to do.

Taking in a deep breath, he looked at his sister one final time, apologising as best he could using only his eyes before he pulled the trigger. The recoil sent shockwaves through his arm, and he waited for what felt like hours for the bullet to find it’s mark. In reality, it was less than a second before the bullet tore through Nicholas’ upper left chest, and he recoiled backwards before dropping to his knees. Shocked at what he’d done, Malcolm stared at the gun for a moment before throwing it away from himself and rushing over to Ainsley’s side. He would check on Endicott after he’d made sure his sister was okay.

Ainsley was lying on the floor; having clearly fainted or collapsed from the ordeal she’d been put through. He checked her for injuries, his worry increasing when he felt how cold she was. “It’s going to be okay Ains, I’ll get you out of here, just hold on.” Malcolm wasn’t entirely sure how he was going to go about doing that, but he’d find a way. Ainsley was in shock, the sooner she got medical attention; the better.

Putting his hands under Ainsley’s shoulders, Malcolm lifted her up and started to drag her towards the door, apologising to her for not having the strength to carry her properly. He was tired, and he didn’t feel well, but he was doing his best and that would have to be enough. At least Ainsley was unconscious and therefore easier to move.

“Congratulations, Malcolm.” Nicholas stood up, oddly enough without a speck of blood or signs of injury on him. “You got over your fear, you did what was necessary and saved this woman’s life.” 

None of this made any sense. He’d shot Nicholas: how could he be standing after taking a bullet to the chest? Where was the blood? How could he even talk? “You’re free to go.”

Before Malcolm could even respond, a door opened, and he was forced out of the dark room, Ainsley getting dragged with him, into the blinding light of the world outside of his personal prison.


	3. Dani

Her head was throbbing as she woke up. It felt like her heartbeat was in her brain instead of where it was supposed to be inside her chest. Dani was going to have a killer headache after how hard she’d hit her head, and she didn’t think it was one that an aspirin would be able to get rid of. She wouldn’t be surprised if she had a concussion. The explosion had sent them all hurtling backwards with such force, Dani was surprised she didn’t have any broken bones. She still wasn’t sure she didn’t break anything.

She was trying to remember what had happened since the explosion, but it was all a blur. She’d been drifting in and out of consciousness before her body had given up fighting to stay awake, and she’d been dragged down into darkness. She wished she had fought harder to keep her eyes open. If she had, she would have a better idea of where she now was.

She hated feeling this helpless and uncertain. Dani wouldn’t go as far as saying she was a control freak, but she did like to have some idea what was going on. Waking up in a dark room was not something that sat well with her.

Dani knew that she couldn’t control everything and trying would be a losing battle. It was one of the first things she’d learned in NA, and was one of the things she struggled with most. She chalked it up to being a cop. It could be dangerous on the streets of New York if you were unprepared or didn’t plan for every eventuality.

She knew better than most how quickly a situation could go south. Her father had been a cop, and he’d been killed when he’d answered a domestic violence call. Everything had been going fine, the situation had started to de-escalate till the wife had pulled out a gun. When her father had tried to disarm her, he’d been shot and killed. Dani had sworn to never let something like that happen to her or someone else she cared about. Unfortunately, it was a lot easier to promise than it was to keep, especially where Malcolm was concerned.

Just thinking about Malcolm sent a jolt of panic through her. He’d been closer to the blast than her, and she could only hope and pray that he was alright. He’d been ordered to stay back, but Malcolm, as always, had chosen to ignore orders and join them in staking out the building that the video message was broadcasting from.

Apparently, he thought he could use his fancy FBI training to talk the person down and going in without any protection would help keep things calm. Fat load of good that did. The place had been empty, or so they’d thought. It was only as they were leaving the building that it had started to blow up, and they’d barely cleared the area before they’d all been blown off of their feet.

She really hoped everyone else was okay.

This mad man, this  monster who took pleasure in experimenting with people’s lives and using their worst fears against them, needed to be stopped. They had been working on the case for months ever since Malcolm had made the connection, so when they’d finally gotten a thread to follow, they had all rushed off. Now, she wished they’d been more cautious. In hindsight, it was obvious that their killer had wanted them to chase after that clue, all so he could get them right where he wanted. 

Dani had seen the bodies, she knew what would happen if they failed their tests. She didn’t even know if there was a way to not fail. They’d reached out to people who attended similar support groups, and only a handful had gotten back to them. Most hadn’t talked, they clearly didn’t want to, likely out of fear of the consequences. The few that did had acted like the experience had changed their lives.

They weren’t afraid anymore. Dani thought that they had to be delusional in some way, or so traumatised that they didn’t realise what had happened to them. No one could be that happy about being abducted and subjected to their worst nightmares. You’d have to be crazy to believe something like that was a blessing.

Standing up was a chore with how much her head throbbed, but Dani forced herself to do it anyway. The sooner she got up, the sooner she could try and find out where she was and how to get out.

She had a sinking feeling that their killer had decided to take the team and use them for their latest experiment. She hoped she was wrong, she even hoped that no one else had been taken, but all the evidence supported her initial theory. If she didn’t find a way out of this room quickly, she ran the risk of becoming the killer’s latest victim, and she refused to die like that. Dying on duty wasn’t uncommon, but if she was going to die on the job, she would rather it not be whilst being the captive of some madman who thought he was ‘fixing’ people.

The room was dark, no surprise there. It seemed like a typical bad guy move to have someone in a room where they couldn’t see everything. Dani was reminded of when Malcolm had profiled a window, calling it a bad guy window. She was sure if he was here, he’d be trying to profile the room. “You better be safe Bright.” Even though she whispered, her voice seemed to echo in the darkness. “We’re gonna need you to help us nail this guy.”

A search in her pockets revealed nothing. Dani had known it would be a long shot that she’d still have her phone on her, but it had been worth a try. Even if she couldn’t call anyone, she could have used the torch to get a better look at her surroundings. There had to be a way out of here, a door somewhere that she could try to wrench open, or a window for her to break. She was starting to feel claustrophobic trapped in this room.

“Dani Powell.” Turning on the spot, she found a man standing in the shadows, a bag in one of his hands. “You’ve had quite the impressive career.” Something was gleaming in his other hand, and it was only when he came closer to her that she realised it was her four year sober chip from NA. “And a colourful past.” The man tossed the bag at her, and it was only out of reflex that Dani managed to catch it. 

“What’s in the bag?” She wasn’t about to go rifling through a bag not knowing what was in there. This guy had already proven he was unhinged. For all she knew, he could have broken glass or used needles in the bag. 

The man smiled, tossing her chip into the air and catching it in one fluid motion. “The best coke money can buy.” Dani’s jaw clenched, her nostrils flaring at how casually he told her the contents, like he’d told her it was full of cotton candy or those silly dum dums Malcolm loved so much. “You’ve got experience with it, don’t you?” He waved the chip, taunting her with it, mocking her.

“So this is my challenge?” Dani tossed the bag onto the floor and folded her arms over her chest. “A fair effort, but I’m done with that part of my life, I’m not at all tempted by that.” If she could go into the very club she’d gone undercover in, where there’d been hundreds of kilos worth of cocaine and not be tempted, then she certainly wasn’t going to be tempted by however much was in that bag.

“Dani, you’ve missed the point in all of this.” He pocketed her chip and moved closer. It was strange, how normal he looked, how sane. The man, who the team had started to refer to as a knock off Jigsaw from the Saw movies had hair that reached just past his ears. It was a few shades darker than Bright’s and looked just as soft. He had piercing green eyes, a fleck of brown in the corner of his right eye, and a strong square jaw. Looking at him, no one would believe someone like that was capable of such atrocities. If Dani had walked past him along the street, she wouldn’t have given him a second thought. He was so unassuming, which was likely how he’d gotten away with his experiments for such a long time.

“So what is the point?”

“The point is to overcome your greatest fear. To face the thing that caused you trauma, that you are afraid could happen again, and to stop it having power over you.” There were a few things Dani was afraid of: her friends and family dying, bees, her teeth suddenly falling out, and losing the progress she’d made since becoming sober. How had he learned about her addiction? And why had he chosen that as her challenge? “Once you’ve faced your fear with me guiding you, you won’t be afraid anymore.”

"You really think you're helping people?" Dani asked in disbelief. "People are dead! You murdered them!" This guy was deluded. How could he believe he was doing his victims a favour when they hadn’t all survived? 

Her captor frowned, his friendly demeanour replaced by something else, something more dangerous. "I'm not to blame for their failure. I gave each and every one of them a fair chance. I tried to help them, but they wouldn't do what was necessary in order to heal." The man seethed. “They got themselves killed, that’s not on me. Their own fear killed them.”

Dani chose not to dignify that with a response. If the man was that far down the rabbit hole of his delusions, then nothing she said would change his perspective or pull him out. She’d met people like him before, people who would deny they were wrong even when presented with the truth of their errors. There wasn't a cure for those unable to admit and learn from their faults.

“The things I do, there’s a science behind it, a method. By exposing you and my other patients to their fears, I’m helping them.”

“Surely you should be doing that in a controlled manner, taking baby steps and building it up slowly before you force them into the deep end? Or better yet, doing something that  doesn’t involve someone dying if they fail.”

“I don’t expect you to understand, you’re not a doctor. You have no training or qualifications in this.” 

“But you do, right?” Dani questioned, one eyebrow raised. “You’re what, some sort of therapist?”

The man had the gall to laugh at her, like she was some child who’d just learned how to ride a bike, or had learned how to count to twenty. “Very good Miss Powell. You might give Malcolm a run for his money.” Dani wished she could wipe that smug smile off of his face, but wisdom told her to be cautious. “Yes, I’m a therapist, licensed and everything. I specialise in this field.”

“What? Being a psycho?” Dani spat back.

“No. In traumas and phobias,” he answered as if what he was doing was the most natural thing in the world.

“Well, you picked the wrong people to try and fix. We’re going to get out of this, and we’re going to stop you,” Dani promised.

“ If you do all make it out, you’ll be thanking me. My way of doing things might be tougher than others who use this method, but you can’t deny the results. My way works, and someday, everyone will follow my protocols and no one will have to live in fear.”

How many more victims were out there? How many other poor souls had this man tormented? Why hadn’t any of those who’d passed this psycho’s tests come forward? Could he be right? Were they  thankful for what he’d put them through? The notion sickened Dani. She never wanted to be grateful to a man like him.

“So.” Dani swallowed and looked down at the bag. “What’s my test? Deny the drugs? Because if so, you can let me go now, I’m not going to take them.”

“Not even to save your brother?” The ‘therapist’ replied, not missing a beat.

“What? What are you talking about? What have you done to him?” Now Dani was afraid, and damn him for that. She’d promised her mother she would look out for her little brother. She couldn’t allow anything to happen to him.

“You’ve missed the point entirely, Miss Powell. You aren’t tempted by drugs because you’re afraid of them, of what they did to you and the person you became. You’re afraid of them because they almost killed you, and a part of you knows that if your father were still alive, he’d be so disappointed in you for what you did.”

Dani’s blood felt like it had frozen. She felt cold and strangely violated.

“That’s your fear. The drugs and the disappointment that comes with it. So in order to get over that fear, you need to take them. Once you realise you can take them and not become that person, they’ll no longer have power over you, and you can finally move forward with your life.”

“Are you insane?!” Dani gasped. “I’m an addict, you can’t- I can’t just take drugs. It’s dangerous. I could relapse or have a bad reaction!” This man claimed to be a professional. If that was true, he should know better. “I’m not doing it.”

“Then your brother dies, all because you’re too selfish to do what needs to be done.” Dani shook her head in disbelief. This couldn’t be happening, her little brother couldn’t be in danger.

“How do I even know you have him?” As if he’d been expecting her question, the ‘therapist’ pulled out a remote and clicked a button. A TV screen flashed to life, revealing an image of her brother tied up and seemingly screaming for help. There was no sound, but it didn’t take a profiler to know he was scared and wanted out. “No.” Tears streamed down her face. “What have you done to him?”

“Nothing. Yet.” Dani didn’t need him to say any more. The silence said it all. If she didn’t comply, Thommy would be the one to pay the price; his blood would be on her hands. “So, what’s your decision?”

Glaring at the man, Dani knelt on the floor and took out the bag of cocaine from the duffel bag she’d been given. Ripping a small hole, she put some onto a finger and snorted it, wincing at the burn it left in her nose. “There. I took some.” She spat. “Happy now?”

“All of it, detective.”

“Are you serious?!” Dani’s jaw nearly fit the floor. “There must be ten grammes in here!” Was he  trying to kill her? 

He said nothing, just looking pointedly at her.

“No, no way. I won’t do it. If I take that much I’ll OD.” She was no doctor, but she knew that even a gram would be too much. This man was going to kill her. Whether she passed his twisted test or failed it, she wasn’t going to walk out of here.

But at least she could save her brother.

So with tears in her eyes, Dani ripped open the bag completely and started to ingest it, using her fingernails to divide it into lines to make it easier.

After a while, a familiar feeling washed over her, a feeling she hoped she’d never have to feel again. Four years, and she’d never forgotten that feeling. Even after all these years, she recognised that hypersensitivity to her surroundings and how she was more alert now than she had been before. Dani felt a surge of confidence grow within her like she could do anything in the world, be anyone she wanted to be.

By her 5th line, she was sweaty and finding it hard to focus on the task. By the 8th line, she started to feel like she was being watched. By her 12th, that good feeling was gone, replaced with a sense of dread and anxiety, and by her 15th, her heart was beating so hard against her chest, she feared it was going to break through her ribcage, through her skin, and she’d see it lying on the floor in front of her.

As she tried to take another line, her vision began to blur. The room started to spin, and before she could understand how she’d gotten there, she felt the cold concrete against her face. The last thing she saw before she lost awareness was the remaining coke she’d failed to consume, and she felt a sense of guilt for what that failure meant for her brother.


	4. JT

When JT first met Malcolm, Gil had told them they wouldn’t get along. It was easy to believe that given the first impression Malcolm had given. JT had thought he would never like the guy, he was too arrogant, too obnoxious, too uncaring about protocols or the safety of those around him.

He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Bright had shown himself to be a hardworking man with integrity, and even if the dude was crazy, JT considered him a member of their team. Bright was like an annoying little brother who always managed to get into trouble, but you’d bail him out of it because that’s just how things went. It was one of the reasons JT hadn’t believed Bright could be capable of killing Eddie, even when the evidence pointed that way. Yes, Bright had motive, his DNA had been there, but it wasn’t his style. He wasn’t a killer.

JT had learned to trust and care for Malcolm; it had killed him to see what Ainsley’s trial had been doing to him. Both he and Dani had commented on the weight Malcolm had lost, trying at every opportunity to get him to eat something, even if it was just a doughnut or a licorice stick. Malcolm had expressed how touched he’d been by their concern, but he’d rebuffed them at every turn. It had annoyed the hell out of JT, but he’d tried not to push at it so hard. Instead, he’d offered his support when and where he could with the cold cases Malcolm had been looking at.

He hadn’t been sure anything would come from it, but he hadn’t been surprised either when Malcolm had made a connection, and suddenly they had a new serial killer to hunt down. 

There had been a string of murders over the last few months, all of them cold cases that caught Malcolm’s attention. On initial glance, there didn’t seem to be anything tying the crimes together, except for how the bodies were placed. Each method of murder was different, but Malcolm noticed something, and with nothing else needing his attention, he dove right in to try and find a way to link the crimes. After several months, he’d done just that.

JT wondered if the kid would ever cease to amaze him. He also wondered if he’d ever get to see him again. Given the situation they now found themselves in, there was a distinct possibility that not all of them were going to get out of this alive.

When the bomb went off, JT had been the last one to lose consciousness. He’d been around more than one explosion during his two tours of Afghanistan. Although he hadn’t become immune to the aftershocks, like the ringing ears, the pounding head or disorientation, he was able to use his training to take stock of what was happening before he’d succumbed to darkness.

JT had thought leaving the Army would be the end of fighting against terrorists and having bombs explode around him. He wasn’t sure if it was bad luck, or if the universe was screwing with him, but in the span of six months, he’d now been around two. Luckily, no one had gotten hurt last time, unless you counted Gil’s car which JT didn’t. 

Sadly, he couldn’t say the same this time. He’d seen his team get hurt and had watched as they were all thrown into the back of a van by some guy in a cheap suit. JT had tried to fight him off, but he’d fallen unconscious before he could stop the man doing the same to him. By the time he’d regained consciousness, he was in a dark room facing three monitors, all of which appeared to be showing a live feed of Malcolm, Dani and Gil.

“What the hell.” Groaning, he rubbed his head, checking himself for any injuries. He wasn’t at all surprised when he found not only a lump, but also a cut towards the back of his head. “Dang, must have hit my head harder than I thought.” JT didn’t know who he was talking to, no one else was in the room with him as far as he could tell.

First things first, he needed to find a way out of this room, so he could save the rest of his team. During his Army training, they’d covered what to do if ever held hostage, so at least he wasn’t having to take a stab in the dark. It was just ironic that it was only after he’d left the Army that he was finally getting to put that training into good use.

After surveying the room, JT found it bare other than the chair he’d woken up in, the three monitors, and a door. Despite knowing it would be futile, he tried the handle and was surprised when he felt the door give way. Why would their perp put him in an unlocked room? If he wanted to, he could leave and go rescue the rest of the team. There had to be an angle here, there was no way it could be this easy.

“I wouldn’t go through there if I were you.” A distorted voice filled the room. It sounded like it was coming through an old speaker. “Not if you value the lives of your teammates.”

“Okay, so we’re going with a creepy announcer vibe.” JT looked around at the ceiling, finally spotting a camera and an ancient looking speaker in the corner of the room. “Watch out, big brother is watching.”

“You’re funny, detective. Has anyone ever told you that before?” the voice replied.

“All the time.” His wife especially, but he wasn’t going to hand over that kind of ammo to this psycho. “So, let me guess. My man Bright was right, those murders were all connected, and you’re the self imposed mastermind behind it all.”

“They weren’t murders, detective. I know it might seem that way to an uneducated man like yourself, but I tried to help those people. It’s not my fault they refused that help.” 

It was a good thing the guy wasn’t standing in front of JT right now, or he would have punched his lights out for that little dig. People often thought he was all brawn and no brain, but he hadn’t gotten to where he was in life by being stupid.

“Sure, they weren’t,” JT scoffed. “So, we found you out, and now you’re gonna what? Silence us? If our guy figured you out, others will too. You might as well give up. It’s over for you.”

“I’m trying to help all of you. I’ve been watching you for months, studying you all.” JT’s skin crawled at the thought, wondering what this guy had seen “You all carry around guilt, fear and a weight that is dragging you down bit by bit. I can help you, I can free you from it.”

“Thanks bro, but we’re good. If any of us needs a shrink, an actual one, we can go see one at any time.” JT wasn’t going to put up with this BS. His team needed him, standing around arguing with a crazy person wasn’t going to get him anywhere.

“Always so eager to rush in and save the day,” the voice mocked. “So eager to be seen as the hero, even if it’ll get your team killed.”

JT’s nostrils flared. “You don’t know anything about me. Sure, you’ve been stalking me and watching me like some creeper, but that doesn’t mean you know me. I’m not going to just stand here and let you hurt my friends. If I can save them, then that’s what I’m going to do.”

“Always so afraid to watch from the sidelines, to be helpless.” Was this guy even listening to him? Or was he just spouting whatever nonsense he wanted? JT honestly had no clue. He could really use one of Bright’s quips right about now. “This is your test Detective. You can either go through that door, which will trigger a switch that will kill all your friends. Or you can stand and watch the genius of my work. Once it’s finished, you’re free to leave…with whoever remains of your team.”

JT’s jaw clenched, his anger threatening to boil over. “You expect me to just stand here and do nothing while you torture my friends?” 

“No detective, I expect you to watch.”

JT scoffed. He wasn’t going to do that. “That’s not going to happen.”

“It’s not like you really have a choice now is it?”

JT hated this. He hated that his hands were tied. He hated that this madman would be using his friends in some sick experiment. More than that, he hated that he was too afraid to call their bluff. He could be out that door in a matter of seconds, he could get his team out, but if there was even a slight chance that the man wasn’t lying, he couldn’t risk his friend’s lives by trying to save them.

With a sickening feeling in his stomach, JT dragged his feet over to the monitors, wishing he could be anywhere else. 

JT watched as their perp went into each room, injecting each of his teammates with something before leaving the room. If he’d been angry before, it was nothing compared to what he felt now. Bright was on god knows how many meds, Dani was an addict, and Gil…Gil wasn’t a young man anymore. What if his heart couldn’t take it?

As soon as their captor was off screen, he looked to the camera in his room, eyes burning with rage. “What the hell did you just give them?!”

There was a crackle, a bit of feedback before the voice cut through the silence. “A man-made substance.” There was a pause. “Phencyclidine. You might know it better as it’s  street name PCP or Angel Dust. Though I’ve heard it get called a range of things over the years.” JT tried to rack his brain, but his knowledge on drugs wasn’t as well versed as it was for other people. “You look confused, detective, so let me explain. Phencyclidine is a man made drug that was created in 1926. It was discovered that it could reduce a person’s pain, and by 1950, it was being used as an anesthetic.”

JT threw his head back and groaned. He didn’t want or care about a history lesson. He just wanted to know what this stuff was going to do to his friends.

“Don’t get sassy with me, detective. You could learn something from this, expand your knowledge.”

JT sucked in a breath, letting it out slowly. “Fine. Continue.”

“Thank you. Phencyclidine was used as an anesthetic until 1965 due to it’s severe side effects-”

“Side effects? What side effects?” He might get chastised for interrupting, but he couldn’t let information like that slip through his fingers, not if those side effects put the people he cared about in danger.

“Hallucinations, psychosis, panic attacks, paranoia, amnesia, seizures, strokes, death.” Each side effect filled JT with more dread. How were his friends supposed to pass whatever tests this psycho threw at them if they couldn’t think straight? How could he help his friends get out of this if they didn’t even know what was real and what wasn’t? “But don’t worry, this is a cocktail of my own creation. It’s unlikely that they’ll die from it.”

“Wow, is that supposed to be comforting?” JT retorted, unable to hold back from his biting words.

“I understand your concerns, detective, but I’ve perfected my personal brand over the years. It’s unlikely that there will be any long lasting effects to your friends. It’s necessary for them to hear and see what I want them to. This drug allows me to guide them into that. Of course, it’s not an exact science, but the drug’s unique qualities cause acute anxiety, so a push in the right direction usually works.” 

JT felt sick. His stomach rolled, the contents of his breakfast threatening to come back up again as he thought about all the ways this could go down. Drugs were dangerous even when made by chemists with years of experience under their belt. It sounded like this guy was mainly using guess work, or a trial and error method in order to perfect his drug. There was no way to tell whether he knew for certain what could happen. The drug had been banned for a reason. Why couldn’t people just leave drugs well enough alone?

“Once they wake up, the fun can begin. But remember, detective, if you try to get involved, your friends will pay the price.”


	5. Exposed

“Come on. Do not give up on me now.” JT grunted as he pushed down on Dani’s chest, giving two rescue breaths for every thirty chest compressions. He had no idea how long he’d been doing it for, all he knew was that if he stopped, Dani would die.

JT had watched as their captor had confronted each of his teammates and tortured them with impossible situations. He had seethed with anger when Malcolm fell apart, cried when Gil sobbed as he was made to lose everything he had on Jackie, and screamed himself hoarse when that sick, twisted, demented man forced Dani to take drugs. Each moment he watched his team break down, his hands itched to wrench open that door, but fear made him hold his ground.

It was only when Dani started seizing that JT had finally jumped into action. Malcolm and Gil were out of their respective rooms, and he would be damned if he left Dani to die. There was a small window: two minutes from when Dani’s heart stopped to when chest compressions needed to start. If he didn’t get to her in those two minutes, she ran the risk of serious brain damage from the lack of oxygen.

“You don’t get to quit on me now, Powell. Not like this.” He had watched Dani grow so much over the years overcoming that dark chapter in her life, and he couldn’t let this be the end of her story. Her family needed her, and so did the team.

No one else was able to help him. The drugs were still affecting Malcolm and Gil, and JT had no clue how long ‘angel dust’ was supposed to last. Malcolm was currently cradling a manikin with a picture of Ainsley’s face attached to it, trying to get her to ‘wake up’, and Gil was storming up and down the corridor screaming for Jessica.

When JT left his room, he hadn’t stopped to ask questions. His mind had been focused on getting Dani out of her room, into the main corridor, and starting CPR. JT wasn’t sure if it was more mind games or just a stroke of good luck, but his cell phone was waiting for him on a table outside his door. So he did the only logical thing he could do: he called for backup and an ambulance.

If the psycho who’d taken them wasn’t currently knocked out cold on the floor, JT would have forced him to help or undo what he’d done to his friends. Unfortunately, when JT went to rescue Dani, he’d seen red and punched the guy right in his smug, goading face. Whilst it had felt good at the time, he did wish he’d acted a bit more rationally. Even if it was a pipe dream to think their captor would help after tormenting them, a small part of him hoped the man would do  something . 

JT felt like he was drowning. He’d been in tough situations before, ones that seemed hopeless, both in the Army and the NYPD. But this? This was overwhelming, and he had no idea what to do. Dani was still unresponsive, and it had been almost ten minutes since he’d phoned for help.

He was starting to get tired. It was no easy task to do CPR for such a long time, and his arms were starting to seize up and become heavy. JT knew he couldn’t stop. If he stopped, Dani would die, and the team would never recover from a loss like that. He had to keep going no matter what. Even if Malcolm and Gil were falling apart nearby, JT couldn’t risk trying to help them. It was a lose lose situation. No matter how he looked at it, their captor had won.

JT had no idea where they were. He hadn’t been able to give the bus a location, and the battery on his phone was dwindling. Dani was going to die, and it would be all his fault, all because he’d been too afraid of the potential risks to go in earlier to save her. No one was going to find them; not in time. Dani would be dead, and both Gil and Malcolm’s minds would be damaged beyond repair. 

“I’m sorry. God. I’m so sorry.” JT had failed them all. His team needed him, and he had just stood there and  watched .

“NYPD!” Hearing their salvation nearby, JT began to scream and shout for help, feeling a sense of relief when police and paramedics burst through the door. 

“Let us take it from here, detective.” JT fell back, his arms falling to the side as the paramedics took over and began using a defibrillator to restart her heart. Dani would be safe with them, they would get her back, they  had to get her back.

Besides, JT had a psycho to deal with.

After giving the other paramedics the details of what Malcolm and Gil had been injected with, JT followed the line of police officers to where he had left the man who’d taken them. It came as no surprise that the shrink was awake and resisting arrest. JT found he preferred it that way, it gave him an excuse to use a bit of extra force when helping the other officers get him into handcuffs. 

JT wasn’t a violent man, even if people assumed he was based on appearance alone, but he was tempted to make an exception this time. If there weren’t other cops around, he would have given into those temptations.

“You have the right to remain silent.” JT only half listened as one of the other cops read him his rights, too angry and too exhausted both physically and emotionally to pay attention to the Miranda warning.

“I was helping them, they needed my help.”

“Shut your goddamn mouth,” JT snapped, breaking out of his haze. “You shut your damn mouth you piece of filth. You didn’t help anyone. You’re a murderer, and I’m going to make sure you rot in jail for a long time for what you’ve done.”

“I’ve fixed them. There’s nothing wrong with what I did.”

JT lunged at the man. If it weren’t for the cops that jumped in and held him back, JT probably would have been looking at an assault charge when all of this was said and done. As much as JT wanted to hurt their perp, he was glad his fellow officers had stepped in.

“Your days of experimenting on people are  over ,” JT hissed. Turning to the lead officer, he grunted. “Get this piece of trash out of here. I need to go check on my team.”

With heavy footsteps, JT went back to where his team was being treated by the EMTs. Dani was no longer there. Until he got to the hospital, he would just have to hope she was okay. Malcolm and Gil were still being treated, IVs in their arms and shock blankets wrapped around them. It all seemed so surreal. Months of investigation led them to this. JT couldn’t help but wonder if it was all worth it.

“Doctor Gotobed?” JT looked over as Malcolm finally spoke up for the first time in ages. JT had caught him mumbling to the manikin doll a few times, but since getting out of his room, Malcolm hadn’t addressed anyone else. Clearly, their perp was important enough to have broken through his haze.

“Bright? Do you know this man?” JT asked him, trying to catch the profiler’s attention, but the man just looked at him like he had two heads. There was next to no recognition in his friend’s eyes, and it killed JT that there was a chance this could end up being permanent. 

“I, I think so.” Malcolm had finally looked up from the floor, a brief moment of clarity breaking through the haze and confusion. 


	6. The Psychiatrist

The world around Malcolm was still tilted on its axis, not quite real enough, but even with all the monsters hiding in the shadows and colours dancing around him, he still recognised the man now being taken away into police custody.

It had been a long, harrowing few months filled with more sleepless nights than usual, a decline in appetite, which for him was saying something, and his anxiety worse than it had been since childhood. Malcolm knew he couldn’t be mad at his sister for what had happened, not when she’d been dissociating when she’d murdered Endicott, but her trial had taken its toll on him.

Gil and Jessica had expressed their concerns on multiple occasions, urging him to take better care of himself. His mother had even offered for Malcolm to move back to the Whitly residence to ensure he got enough food and sleep, but Malcolm was struggling to set foot in his childhood home. It had been bad enough going there with all the memories, as well as the lack of memories he had of his father; now it was virtually impossible. When he’d tried before, all he could see was Endicott’s blood staining the carpet, and his little sister staring at him, silently begging for help.

Ainsley’s trial had been a rollercoaster ride. Even with the best lawyers in the city fighting in her corner and several medical professionals arguing that she’d had a psychotic break brought on by extreme circumstances, there had been no way to tell which way the jury would go. At one point, the media had called for Ainsley to be locked up in Claremont, another day they had rallied around her and hailed her a hero after more and more evidence had come to light about the things Endicott had done. At one point, there’d even been talk of throwing the case out all together, but unfortunately for Ainsley, the DA had kept pushing for a guilty verdict. 

Malcolm had argued on his sister’s behalf, coming to her defence and being honest about the threats Endicott had made to him and his family. He had reassured Ainsley that she’d get through this, but he’d seen the toll it had taken on her. Her once sunny disposition was gone, and he couldn’t help but blame himself. If he had shot Endicott like he had planned, would he have spared his sister the trauma and stress she’d been put under?

That was the question that brought him to Gabrielle’s office. After dodging therapy for months and refusing to talk about the murder and trial with anyone, Malcolm had finally relented and agreed to see his therapist. As his mother had so eloquently put it, avoiding therapy was going to put him in an early grave, and she’d been under enough stress without having more added on.

Malcolm knew he needed to be rid of the guilt he was being weighed down by, and properly process what had happened, but a part of him felt like he deserved it. If he’d never pursued the mystery of the girl in the box, if he hadn’t been so persistent, then Eve would still be alive, and Endicott wouldn’t have taken measures to have him arrested. All of this, everything his family had been through recently, all the lies, the guilt, the trauma, the death and the shame, all of it could have been avoided if he’d only stopped looking. His father had warned him, and Malcolm had refused to listen.

Just look where that had gotten him.

Malcolm sat outside Gabrielle’s office, leg bouncing up and down as he tried to quell his nerves and organise his thoughts. There was so much that he needed to unpack with her, far too much for one session. He knew it would take several weeks, if not years, to discuss and process what he’d been through recently. He just wished he knew where to start.

Malcolm had still been going to his sessions with Gabrielle, just not as frequently, and he’d never really spoken to her about what had happened with John Watkins or learning that the girl in the box was not only real, but alive. Should he start by talking to Gabrielle about that? Or skip over it and just discuss what had happened with Ainsley? How could he possibly sort through his thoughts and move past his trauma properly if he didn’t even know where to begin?

Checking his watch, his nerves became more acute when he saw Gabrielle was ten minutes late for their appointment. It wasn’t unheard of for her sessions to run late sometimes, but she always made a point of letting the next person know. Had something happened? Had she forgotten he was coming? Was this her not so subtle way of telling him she wouldn’t be his therapist any more?

She’d voiced her concerns before and suggested he find someone more age appropriate, but Malcolm had stubbornly held onto her. Gabrielle had helped him through some of the darkest moments of his life, and although he knew he should have moved on to another therapist decades ago, he couldn’t stomach the idea of seeing anyone else. He trusted Gabrielle, and given all he’d been through, it wasn’t so surprising that he had some issues regarding trust.

Finally, the door opened, and Malcolm sprung out of his chair, eager to get the session over with so he could get back to the precinct. There had been a string of murders over the last few months, all of them cold cases that had caught his attention. At an initial glance, there didn’t seem to be anything tying the crimes together, except for how the bodies were placed. Each method of murder was different, so it made sense why no one had linked the crimes before, but Malcolm had noticed something. With nothing else needing his attention, he dove right in to try and find a way to link the crimes and bring the killer to justice. He knew he could do it, he just needed to spend some quality time with the files, which he couldn’t do until he had finished his therapy session.

To his surprise, it wasn’t Gabrielle who greeted him, but a gentleman not much older than him, going off of his appearance alone. “Ah, you must be Malcolm.” The man greeted, offering him his hand. “I’m Doctor Phillip Gotobed.”

“Gotobed?” Malcolm repeated, trying not to sound too surprised or amused at the name. It had to be made up, right?

“I know, it’s an unfortunate last name, isn’t it?” the doctor replied, a resignation in his voice that said he’d heard the same jokes far too many times. “Sadly, I had no choice in the matter, though I don’t think my parents did me any favours by sending me to boarding school.”

Malcolm gave a sympathetic groan. “Kids can be cruel.” The doctor smiled and nodded in agreement. “I don’t mean to sound rude but….where’s Doctor Le Deux?” That was her office that he’d walked out of, and he couldn’t hear her comforting voice inside, so where was she?

“I’m afraid Doctor Le Deux had to leave early, there was an emergency of some sorts, but I’m doing a rotation in child psychology, and I’ve been working with her for the past month. Normally I deal with adults, those with psychosis, trauma, PTSD and a range of other issues. I wanted to get an extra qualification in child psychology, and Doctor Le Deux came highly recommended.” 

Malcolm started looking towards the exit, contemplating leaving right there and then. He could always try again another day. “I know it’s not what you were hoping for, and I know talking to a psychiatrist you’ve never spoken to before can be a bit daunting, but Doctor Le Deux did ask if I could see you on her behalf, and I’ve familiarised myself with your file.” He sounded warm, comforting, but it did little to ease Malcolm’s nerves. “Come on, at least give me a try. Who knows, you might find you like talking to me, and if not, you can leave and nothing needs to be said about it.”

Malcolm weighed his options. On one hand, he didn’t know this man, and he wasn’t his doctor. He had no obligation to talk to him, and if he left now, he’d get more time at the precinct to go over those case files. On the other hand, Malcolm knew if he left, the emotions he’d been holding back and the hallucinations and trauma would keep building until something pushed him over the edge, and he’d be more of a mess than he currently was. 

Like the doctor had pointed out, he could leave if it wasn’t working out. If Gil or his mother got wind of him skipping out just because it wasn’t Gabrielle, he wouldn’t hear the end of it. “Lead the way, though I should warn you, I have a qualification in psychology myself.” Not that he was boasting or trying to suggest he didn’t need therapy; he just wanted to give Doctor Gotobed a heads up. “And the last specialist in trauma I saw ended up pointing a gun in my face, so obviously, I have my reservations.”

“Goodness me, that must have been awful.” Doctor Gotobed invited Malcolm inside, closing the door behind him. “I hate when certain doctors give the rest of us a bad name, it makes our job that much more difficult.”

“Well, it wasn’t exactly a favourite moment of mine, but I managed to get him to confess, so all things considered, I think it went rather well,” Malcolm deflected, sitting himself down in the seat across from the doctor.

“You make it sound like having a gun in your face is your average Saturday night.” Malcolm could see what the doctor was trying to do. He knew he deflected a lot, that he used humour as a defense mechanism, and clearly the doctor was taking note of it and trying to use it to his advantage. It was a clever strategy, but not clever enough.

“I work with the police, and I was in the FBI; it comes with the job description.” Malcolm shrugged his shoulders. “I managed to talk him down, so no harm was done.”

Doctor Gotobed hummed before sitting down and grabbing himself a notepad. “Impressive work, but you’re not here to talk about that are you?” Malcolm sighed and rubbed his hands together, eyes looking anywhere but the doctor. “I saw all the news surrounding your sister, I know you witnessed something quite traumatic.” Doctor Gotobed leant forward. “I’m guessing that’s why you came here, so why don’t we talk about that?”

Malcolm sucked in a breath, letting it out slowly. He could still leave, it was still an option, but now that he was sitting down, he found he couldn’t get up. He needed to unburden himself, and whilst Doctor Gotobed wasn’t the person he’d wanted to talk to, he was better than no one. 

When Malcolm didn’t say anything, Doctor Gotobed decided to take the lead. “Tell me Malcolm, have you ever heard of exposure therapy?”

“We covered it in a few of my psychology classes at college.”

“Good, then you’ll know there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that it works for people with PTSD like yourself, as well as those with severe phobias.” Doctor Gotobed paused, running his tongue over his bottom lip. “I happen to specialise in this type of therapy, and I think you’d be an excellent candidate for it. I think I could really help you, providing you’re open to it and are happy for me to help.”

Malcolm chewed on the information, weighing the pros and cons that he remembered from his classes. “I’m not sure, Doctor Le Deux is worried if I poke the hornet’s nest too much, it could lead to a psychotic break.”

“Normally I don’t like to contradict another doctor, but in this case, I think she’s wrong. I really think you could benefit from a few sessions with me. You don’t have to make a decision right this moment, but promise me you’ll at least give it some thought?”

Malcolm smiled. That he could do. “I promise.” 

Was this his fault? Had Malcolm brought Gotobed into their lives? Was he the reason they’d been taken?

He’d spoken to Gotobed about his fears, how he fought every day not to be like his father and prove to others he was different. He’d spoken about his arrest, how he was still coming to terms with it, and how he was struggling to move forward.

A measure of trust had been broken on both sides, and Malcolm wasn’t ready to be vulnerable around the team again any time soon. He had thought after everything they’d been through together, they would have believed that he wasn’t capable of murder, and yet, the first moment the possibility was presented, they’d chosen to forgo everything they’d learned about him. 

Deep down, Malcolm knew they’d just been doing their jobs, and he couldn’t fault them for following procedure. What had hurt was how convinced Dani had sounded when she’d questioned his innocence. Maybe that was why it had been so easy to lie to her, thus breaking his promise to always be honest with her. Maybe a part of him had known how it would hurt her, how it would break the bond they had built. 

Dani had told him she had a hard time trusting people, and Malcolm had done exactly what he knew would jeopardize that trust in order to push her away. It had hurt her, a part of him knew it would, and at the time, he’d wanted it to. She had hurt him, it was only fair she feel the same, right? Besides, people eventually left him one way or another, it was better to just rip off the band aid and get it over with.

“I did this.” Malcolm’s hand began to shake, then his whole body. He’d given Gotobed all the tools he needed to create his own personal hell and had kicked the door wide open for Gotobed to go after his friends. “This is all my fault.” 

Malcolm barely noticed JT pulling him in for a hug. He was too far gone. Wracked with guilt and shame, his fragile mind collapsed, his body following in quick succession.


	7. Therapy

Malcolm woke to the smell of disinfectant and the muffled chatter of voices on either side of him. There was something poking at the middle of his hand, something that was uncomfortable, and it took him longer than he’d ever admit to realise it was an IV line. He should have realised he was in a hospital just from the smell alone. 

He just wished he knew why.

“Gil, I think he’s waking up.” His mother sounded tired, and although Malcolm wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep, her hand stroking his cheek made that difficult.

“Thank god, kid, you scared us.” Gil’s voice sounded rough like he’d been crying. Had Malcolm’s injuries really been that bad? He couldn’t feel any pain. Nor could he feel the usual numbness that came with any painkillers.

“What happened?” Opening his eyes slowly, Malcolm looked around the room, surprised when he saw JT sitting on his right and Gil and his mother on his left. Malcolm knew JT was warming up to him, but he had never considered the possibility that JT might care for him.

“You don’t remember?” Malcolm shook his head at Gil’s question. “Not surprising, the doctors said the level of PCP in your blood was higher than the rest of us.”

“Wait. I had PCP in me? How? Why?” With the all the meds he took, the mixture could have proven lethal. 

“Some psycho doctor took us all hostage,” JT explained. “Phillip Gotobed.” Malcolm’s stomach dropped, and so did his face. “Yeah, figured the name would make you react like that, it did last time.” Malcolm’s hand began to tremor, and thankfully, his mother took it in between her hands. “Don’t worry, he’s not going to be hurting anyone else.”

Slowly, bits and pieces started to come back to Malcolm. It was distorted, like he was looking at his memories through a pool of water, and there were some significant gaps, or what he assumed were gaps. His memories didn’t flow in a continuous stream; rather, they jumped back and forth like he was trying to get the right frequency on a radio. What had happened during those missing moments? 

More importantly: “Ainsley! Is she safe? Did I get her out?” Malcolm couldn’t remember if he’d managed to get her away, and now that he noticed she wasn’t by his bedside, he had an awful sense of foreboding that he was about to be told that his sister was dead.

“Relax kid, she’s fine.” Gil reassured him. “So is your mother.”

“My mother?” Malcolm’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Why wouldn’t she be? Did something happen?”

“I’ll let JT explain. He knows more than I do, anyway.” Malcolm looked at Gil, unsure why JT would know more than anyone else did. “JT was made to watch us all on some sort of CCTV. Apparently, that was his test.”

Malcolm turned his attention to JT, patiently waiting as much as possible for him to find out what had happened. He wanted to know why Gil looked like someone had died, he wanted to know why he should be relieved that his mother was okay, and a long list of other questions that were now rattling around inside his brain. Malcolm didn’t like being the one person left in the dark, especially when it pertained to a case or his family.

“Doctor Gotobed was the killer we’ve been after, the one you so cleverly realised was behind all those cold cases.” Malcolm couldn’t help but feel a little smug; far too many people had told him he was making mountains out of mole hills when he’d tried to argue his case. “Yeah, yeah, wipe that smirk off your face,” JT scoffed with a playful roll of his eyes. “Do you remember we followed a lead, and there was an explosion?” 

Malcolm nodded, ignoring the way his mother gasped and started to reprimand Gil. “Well, Gotobed loaded us into a van afterwards and put us all in separate rooms. He drugged you, Dani and Gil, made you see all kinds of things.” There was something strained in JT’s voice, something he wasn’t telling Malcolm. Again, that sense of foreboding reared its ugly head.

“He was making you see Ainsley getting killed by Endicott, but she was never there. He used a manikin with her face on it.” A blush worked its way onto Malcolm’s cheeks. He hadn’t felt this mortified in a long time. “You were cradling that thing for dear life. If I wasn’t so worried about you, you bet your ass I would have taken photos.”

Malcolm took it for the joke that it was, knowing JT well enough by now to realise he was trying to ease the tension with some gallows humour.

“Wait. Does that mean I didn’t shoot anyone?” He remembered firing a gun. If he had hurt or killed anyone, he didn’t think he’d ever be able to forgive himself. 

“Sort of. You did fire at Gotobed when he pretended to be Endicott, but the bullets were plastic. All you did was give him a bruise, and trust me, he deserved a lot worse.”

Malcolm breathed a sigh of relief. At least he hadn’t hurt anyone. As liberating as it had felt in the moment to be free of the guilt he had been plagued with over not being the one to stop Endicott, he knew he would’ve felt a lot worse if he’d actually killed someone.

“So what about my mother?” Malcolm looked between Gil and JT. “What happened there?”

“I don’t remember much either, kid,” Gil confessed. “I thought your mother was in danger, and I…..I did what he told me I had to do if I wanted her to be safe.” Gil’s words became lost as he started to sob, startling Malcolm. He hadn’t seen Gil break down like this since Jackie’s funeral.

“JT. What did Dr. Gotobed make him do?” Malcolm was almost afraid to know the answer.

“That bastard made Gil delete everything he had left of Jackie. All the voicemails, the photos and videos…all of it. Even the hard copies.” 

Malcolm felt like a rug had been pulled out from under him. He was warm and cold at the same time, angry and sad. How could they all just be gone? “Gil-” What was he supposed to say? How could he ever put his sympathies and sense of loss into words?

“Gil, I swear to you, man. I won’t quit hounding our tech guys until we recover it all. I’ll even track down the best hackers in the world and offer them plea deals if they’ll agree to help us.” Malcolm appreciated JT for saying that, and from the look on Gil’s face, he did too.

“I have photos of Jackie you can have, Gil,” Malcolm offered, more than willing to part with the mementos he had of the woman, who’d been like a second mother to him if it would give Gil a sense of peace.

“No, kid. Keep them. They’re your memories of Jackie and I would never take them from you. We both know if she were here, she’d say the same.” Gil reached over and squeezed his hand, smiling warmly at him. “But thank you for the offer.”

Malcolm decided that he was just going to make copies once he got home and sneak them into Gil’s house. He wasn’t sure how he’d do it yet, but he wasn’t going to let it go.

“So no one was in danger?” Malcolm clarified. “No one got hurt?”

There was a pregnant pause as everyone looked at each other. Malcolm wasn’t sure if they were trying to keep one another silent, or if they were begging the other to be the one to talk.

“Just tell me.” He didn’t want to be in the dark anymore. He was sick of all the secrets and lies. All they ever did was cause more pain, and Malcolm was tired of it.

“Dani’s in the ICU.” It was Gil who finally revealed the horrible truth that they’d all been holding onto, the truth that had been looming over him like Damascus’ sword, just waiting to fall down onto him.

Malcolm wasn’t sure how to feel. He wasn’t even sure he could feel. It was like all the joy he’d ever felt in his life and would ever feel again had been sucked out of him in one fell swoop. He felt cold, like he had jumped into a lake of ice.

He must have been quiet for a while because Gil was shaking him and calling his name, sounding terrified.

“I’m here. I’m….” Malcolm stared at the wall opposite him, unable to meet anyone’s eyes. “Tell me.”

“Gotobed made her take cocaine.” JT growled. “He had her thinking her brother was going to be killed, that it was either him or her.” Malcolm felt disconnected from his emotions, but he was sure if he could feel, he would be furious right about now. “I don’t know if it was the cocaine mixing with the PCP, or just the cocaine in general but…she OD’d.” Malcolm’s heart began to slow. “She was seizing and then her heart stopped. I tried to give her CPR. I tried to bring her back but-” 

“What matters is she’s going to be okay,” Gil cut in, allowing JT a moment to regain his composure. “The doctors said she’ll be in the ICU for a week, and she will be on paid leave for a couple of weeks, but she’s going to be okay, kid. You hear me? She’s going to be okay.” 

Malcolm understood why Gil was repeating himself, he just wished that it would sink in. Dani had worked so hard to get sober, and because of Doctor Gotobed, because of  him , all of it was ruined.

“This is all my fault.” Tears started to slip out of his eyes. “Dani. She nearly died, and you lost everything you had of Jackie.” Malcolm’s shoulders began to shake, his chest feeling like a hand was gripping it in a vice. “I did this. I brought that madman into our lives. If I hadn’t spoken to him at Doctor Le Deux’s, none of this would have happened. If I had just left those cold cases well enough alone, he wouldn’t have come after us.”

Malcolm was falling apart at the seams, barely holding it together, deaf to everyone around him trying to calm him down. “I should have listened, why do I never listen? You told me they weren’t connected, that I should just leave the cases alone, but I wouldn’t, and now Dani is going to die, and you’re all going to hate me and I’m going to lose all of you.”

Malcolm had no idea who pulled him into a hug, but he felt strong arms around him. He buried his face into their chest, wailing and screaming the pain away. He should be the one in the ICU. He should be the one fighting for his life. He was the one who deserved to lose everything. 

Malcolm didn’t want to live, not like this. He couldn’t take any more guilt. He was drowning in it, and every time he thought he was finally starting to come up for air, something else came along, pushed him back down, and held his head under. Why couldn’t the universe just give him a break? Why was the world determined to keep chipping away at his soul?

“Kid. Listen to me.” Malcolm shook his head. He didn’t want to listen anymore. He didn’t want to hear any more empty platitudes. “Kid,” Gil tried again, firmer this time.

“Darling, none of this is your fault,” his mother soothed. “Please, dear, you can’t let that man’s actions be your responsibility.”

Malcolm shook his head again. As much as he appreciated his mother’s efforts, she just couldn’t understand how he felt. He knew she carried guilt for what Martin Whitly had done, but this wasn’t the same. She had been an ignorant party; Malcolm had practically handed his team over to this man on a silver platter.

“Your mom’s right, Bright.” JT chipped in. “I know you blame yourself, but this is all on him, not you.” Malcolm turned his head, realising it was Gil’s chest he’d burrowed himself into. “Believe me, I blame myself just as much as you do, maybe even more.” Malcolm couldn’t believe that, there was no way JT could possibly think this was his fault. “He told me if I tried to help you all, he’d activate a kill switch and that would be it.” JT snapped his fingers. “Game over. He made me watch. I could have left my room at any time, but I didn’t because I was too afraid that he wasn’t bluffing.”

“That’s not your fault, you couldn’t have known.” 

Gil humphed in his ear. “Neither could you kid. None of us knew. I could blame myself, too, for not doing a proper sweep of that building before we went in.”

“Gil, no. It’s not your fault, either,” Malcolm tried to argue, unwilling to let his mentor or JT shoulder the blame.

“Dear god, you’re all as bad as each other.” His mother chided. “Can’t we all just skip past this little game of who feels more guilty and focus on what’s really important? You’re all alive, that man is behind bars and for once my son isn’t trying to immediately discharge himself.” Malcolm hung his head, partially out of embarrassment and partially out of shame. “This is nothing that a good drink can’t fix, and luckily I have an excellent selection back at home which you’re all more than welcome to enjoy whenever you so desire. I dare say you’ve all earned it after the year you’ve had.”

“Mother. We’ve been over this. Alcohol is  not the answer.” Malcolm groaned, his ears going pink with embarrassment.

“At least your next session with Gabrielle is sure to be an interesting one, my dear,” Jessica replied. “I’ve already called her and arranged an appointment for you for next week, and this time, I’ll be checking in to make sure it’s  her that you see.”

As much as he usually hated his mother micromanaging him, he appreciated the gesture for what it was.

“That reminds me, Bright.” Malcolm looked over to JT. “This whole experience has been pretty stressful. It’s brought back a lot of unpleasant feelings from the Army. We’re all gonna have to have a psych evaluation before any of us are allowed to return to work.” Malcolm groaned. He just hoped whoever they got wouldn’t write him off. “So I was wondering, do you happen to know any good therapists? Think I’m going to need one, and I know your crazy ass is bound to have some good recommendations.”

“Sure. I can think of a few.” Malcolm smiled.

“This time, let’s just make sure they aren’t crazy, yeah?”

Malcolm laughed, feeling a sense of relief settle into him. If JT was still willing to joke with him and Gil still wanted to give him comfort even when he didn’t deserve it, then maybe, just maybe, things were going to be alright.

* * *

_❛ Exposure therapy is a technique in behavior therapy to treat anxiety disorders. Exposure therapy involves exposing the target patient to the anxiety source or its context without the intention to cause any danger. Doing so is thought to help them overcome their anxiety or distress. ❜_


End file.
